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Spice Rubs and Marinades

Answer: Spice rubs, marinades and brines are some of my favourite cooking practices using everyday. It’s the opportunity where any cook can be creative in manipulating the texture,

tenderness
and most importantly, flavour of meat. They can also help transform tougher
cuts of meat into a melt-in-your-mouth meal, plus they are easy to make.

So, let’s start with brines and marinades. Basic brine is a saltwater solution, usually 3% salt to water weight (the brine should taste like sea water).

Its
sole purpose is to help retain moisture in a product. It also helps evenly
distribute your other seasonings, so that your meat has a consistent flavour
throughout. You can add flavours to your brine like maple syrup, honey, crushed
garlic or herbsas well. For example, I make a brine for pork
chops using salt, half water-half apple juice,
some crushed garlic and chopped rosemary. I
let the chops sit in the brine for no longer than 12 hours with amazing results. Brines are best applied when
using poultry, pork and fish (only brine fish
for a maximum of 30 minutes).

A marinade is
similar in the sense that most marinades contain salt, but also boast an acidic
component, which helps break down meat proteins, making for tender meats. These
acidic bases can be a mixture of lemon and oil, red wine and herbs, or tomato
juice.

In some cases,
the use of bacteria found in yogurt and buttermilk, like in tandoori chicken,
is used to tenderize as well, giving a unique flavour to your product.
Marinating a breast of chicken in buttermilk with herbs and a little bit of
cider vinegar, a day before grilling -delicious.

Spice rubs are
completely different. Most commonly used for BBQ, a rub is all about intense
flavour. Use a good rub for cuts like pork shoulder, back ribs and brisket.
These cuts tenderize due to the collagen in meat breaking down over long
cooking periods, so this allows

the meat to
absorb those wonderful spice combinations. As for what goes into a good rub,
there are thousands of great spice combinations. If you are not interested in
making your own, the Silk Road Spice Merchant in Inglewood has some great
pre-made spice rubs.

Don’t hesitate to look up recipes for brines, marinades and rubs, becoming

confident in
how these techniques are used will raise the bar in your protein cookery.